Its been four years since the last album from our favorite Neo-Classical composer. Woolf Works still to this day makes us pause with every rotation.
Voices, like most projects by Richter was conceived over many years (a decade in fact), and it really feels like a Max Richter album. If you return to his earlier works like 'The Blue Notebooks' or 'Memoryhouse' you will see a similar structure between those LPs and this latest one. Soft and somber piano pieces are woven in between more stirring ensemble works. The difference with voices however is that unlike the aforementioned albums that have moments of darkness and light Voices seems to hang squarely in the center of those emotions. It's an odd place to inhabit - the pieces seem not to convey any hope or despair but rather perhaps an apathy or indifference. The spoken word that lumbers atop the beautiful pieces sadly seems like an afterthought and distracts from the immensity of the music beneath it, for that reason I would advise listening to the voiceless mixes that accompany the album.
All in all, this is a work that is right on par with the high bar that Max has set, not only for himself but for the genre itself.